Claude Rains_ Phantom of the Opera (1943) Phantom of the Opera is a 1943 American romantic horror film directed by Arthur Lubin, loosely based on Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and its 1925 film adaptation starring Lon Chaney. Produced and distributed by Universal Pictures, the film stars Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster and Claude Rains, and was composed by Edward Ward. The first adaptation of the source material to be filmed in Technicolor, Phantom of the Opera was even more fr